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The Knife: Off Record – 118 · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to The Knife off record. I'm Patia Eton, I'm
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Speaker 1: Hannah Smith. Before we get into this episode real quick,
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Speaker 1: if you are enjoying the show, first of all, thank
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can also follow us on Instagram where
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Speaker 2: follo at The Knife podcast on Instagram and Blue Sky.
1:03
Speaker 2: You can also send us an email at The Knife
1:05
Speaker 2: at exactlyrightmedia dot com. This week we have a collaboration
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Speaker 2: with Mandy and Melissa from Moms and Mysteries. Moms and Mysteries,
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Speaker 2: formerly known as Moms and Murder, is a true crime
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Speaker 2: podcast hosted by Mandy and Melissa, two friends who do
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Speaker 2: deep dives into a new case each week. It's conversational
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Speaker 2: in tone and heavy on levity. You'll really enjoy their
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Speaker 2: original takes on both well known cases and lesser known
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Speaker 2: true crime stories.
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Speaker 1: We had such a good time doing this episode with them.
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Speaker 1: They are pros. They've been making their podcast for over
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Speaker 1: eight years now, which is amazing. And Melissa has another
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Speaker 1: podcast I want to shout out. She launched it in
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Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. It's called Criminality and they dive into
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Speaker 1: the true crimes of reality stars, which sounds really interesting.
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Speaker 2: We could definitely get into that.
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Speaker 1: Yes, So in this episode, we are going to bring
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Speaker 1: you two crime stories. Patien I brought a crime story
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Speaker 1: and Mandy and Melissa also brought one. Patia and I
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Speaker 1: cover the murder of Richard Chalin and Mandy and Melissa
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Speaker 1: talk about the Barefoot Bandit. They're really different stories, but
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Speaker 1: both pretty fascinating. And again, we just loved meeting Mandy
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Speaker 1: and Melissa. So let's get into the episode.
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Speaker 3: All right.
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Speaker 1: So the story that we have today is the story
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Speaker 1: of Sally Chalin. I'm going to start the story in
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Speaker 1: twenty ten. Sally, whose real name is Georgina by the way,
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Speaker 1: but she goes by Sally, and Richard Chalin had been
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Speaker 1: married for thirty one years. They had two sons who
2:44
Speaker 1: were both grown, both in their twenties. In twenty ten,
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Speaker 1: Sally was fifty six years old and Richard was sixty one.
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Speaker 1: They lived in Surrey, England, which is southwest of London,
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Speaker 1: and about a year prior, in two thousand and nine,
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Speaker 1: Sally had actually moved out of their family home. Their
3:03
Speaker 1: youngest son, David, was living with Sally and their oldest
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Speaker 1: son was living on his own, so Richard was the
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Speaker 1: only one living in the house that they had lived
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Speaker 1: in for years and raised their sons in. And the
3:15
Speaker 1: reason for this was that they were going to get divorced,
3:19
Speaker 1: but they actually had They were actually in the midst
3:22
Speaker 1: of reconciling. So on the morning of August tenth, two
3:28
Speaker 1: thousand and ten, twenty ten, Sally went over to their
3:31
Speaker 1: family home where Richard was living, with the idea that
3:34
Speaker 1: they were going to spend the day cleaning out the
3:36
Speaker 1: garage getting ready to sell the house. And one of
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Speaker 1: the ideas they had was they were going to use
3:42
Speaker 1: some of this money from the house sale to go
3:45
Speaker 1: on a trip to Australia together, but before they started
3:48
Speaker 1: cleaning out the house, they wanted to make breakfast, so
3:51
Speaker 1: Sally actually left went to the store to go buy
3:54
Speaker 1: bacon and eggs to make breakfast. She would later say
3:59
Speaker 1: that she had the suspicion that Richard told her to
4:03
Speaker 1: go to the store to buy these ingredients to try
4:06
Speaker 1: to get her out of the house, and she was
4:08
Speaker 1: suspicious about this, so when she got back, she checked
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Speaker 1: his phone and it showed a phone call between Richard
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Speaker 1: and this woman, Susan Wilkie. This was a person that
4:20
Speaker 1: Sally was already suspicious of that she had googled the
4:24
Speaker 1: day before, and it turns out Richard had met this woman,
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Speaker 1: Susan Wilkie on a social networking website called Dinner Dates,
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Speaker 1: and when Sally asked Richard about this, he responded with,
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Speaker 1: don't question me. So Sally made breakfast. Richard sat down
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Speaker 1: at the table to eat this breakfast, and when he did,
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Speaker 1: Sally took a hammer from her purse and hit him
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Speaker 1: over the head more than twenty times until he was
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Speaker 1: almost dead. She then stuffed a teatowel into his mouth
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Speaker 1: to make sure he was dead. She wrapped his body
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Speaker 1: in some old curtains and wrote a note and left
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Speaker 1: the note on his body that read I Love you, Sally,
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Speaker 1: and then she left. She went back to the house
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Speaker 1: where she was living. The next morning she got up,
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Speaker 1: she drove her twenty three year old son David to work,
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Speaker 1: and then she left Surrey and drove seventy five miles
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Speaker 1: south to Beachy Head in East Sussex, England, which is
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Speaker 1: on the southern coast and has these massive cliffs that
5:30
Speaker 1: overlook the ocean. It's beautiful from pictures I looked at online,
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Speaker 1: but sadly it's also a very common place for people
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Speaker 1: to go and their life by jumping off the cliffs.
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Speaker 1: And actually in twenty ten, the Wall Street Journal listed
5:45
Speaker 1: it as one of the among the top three most
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Speaker 1: common suicide spots in the world. And if you go there,
5:52
Speaker 1: there are signs with phone number. With the phone number
5:56
Speaker 1: too the Samaritans, which is a charity aimed at providing
5:59
Speaker 1: emotional support to people, and they're available twenty four to seven,
6:02
Speaker 1: and the local community and the police are also aware
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Speaker 1: of this, so they're sort of on the lookout for
6:06
Speaker 1: people that might be trying to do this. Reportedly, Sally
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Speaker 1: called her cousin and confessed to killing Richard and said
6:15
Speaker 1: she planned to jump from the cliffs, but the police
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Speaker 1: were called and it took three hours of them talking
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Speaker 1: to her to convince her to come away from the ledge,
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Speaker 1: and she was taking into custody and charge with the
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Speaker 1: murder of Richard Chalen. The police discovered his body around
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Speaker 1: one pm on Sunday, which was the next day, and
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Speaker 1: a post mortem exam that was conducted determined his cause
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Speaker 1: of death to be severe blunt trauma to the head.
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Speaker 2: So Sally immediately admits to having killed Richard, and so
6:47
Speaker 2: she's taken into custody at that point, and this is
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Speaker 2: August of twenty ten, and so during her time in custody,
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Speaker 2: she is assessed by two different psychologists forensic psychologists, and
7:03
Speaker 2: the first one of those he will get into her trial,
7:08
Speaker 2: but he said that he did not conclude that Sally
7:12
Speaker 2: had been suffering from any mental disorders or personality disorders.
7:17
Speaker 2: Then a second forensic psychologist also assessed Sally and his
7:22
Speaker 2: conclusion was different. He said that he believed she was
7:26
Speaker 2: suffering from a depressive disorder. He also noted that Sally
7:30
Speaker 2: told him about sexual and physical abuse by Richard that
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Speaker 2: included that Richard would rape her as a form of punishment,
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Speaker 2: and that she hoped that when he did this it
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Speaker 2: would sort of make him happy and make him love her.
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Speaker 2: And she's a woman in distress. So this trial takes
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Speaker 2: place in June of twenty eleven, and the trial takes
7:53
Speaker 2: place over seven days, and during her trial, Sally is
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Speaker 2: portrayed by the Crown as constantly checking Richard's phone and email,
8:01
Speaker 2: being jealous and possessive, and having said at one point,
8:06
Speaker 2: if I can't have him, then no one can. And
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Speaker 2: the jury was also told that Sally had been stalking
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Speaker 2: Richard online, spying on him, listening to his voicemails. It
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Speaker 2: was really a picture of a scorned lover, a woman
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Speaker 2: who refused to move on from her failed marriage. And
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Speaker 2: Sally's defense relied partially on something called diminished responsibility, which means, yes,
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Speaker 2: she's saying that she killed him, but her responsibility for
8:37
Speaker 2: killing him cannot be murder because she was experiencing things
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Speaker 2: in the marriage that were taking away her capacity to
8:46
Speaker 2: think clearly. So Sally's defense during her trial is saying,
8:51
Speaker 2: you know, is introducing this concept of diminished responsibility. They're
8:55
Speaker 2: basically asserting that although Sally broke the law by killing Richard,
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Speaker 2: her mental capacity was impaired and this ought to protect
9:04
Speaker 2: her from full criminal responsibility. And the goal here is
9:09
Speaker 2: that Sally doesn't end up with a murder conviction, but
9:13
Speaker 2: instead manslaughter, because manslaughter carries a much lighter sentence and
9:17
Speaker 2: they felt it was appropriate given what she experienced during
9:20
Speaker 2: her marriage to Richard. Unfortunately, Sally is convicted by a
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Speaker 2: unanimous jury in June twenty eleven after only eleven hours,
9:29
Speaker 2: and they convict her of murder. So she appeals her conviction,
9:34
Speaker 2: but it was upheld. The only thing that comes her
9:36
Speaker 2: way is that her sentence is reduced from a minimum
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Speaker 2: of twenty two years to a minimum of nineteen years served.
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Speaker 2: And the entire time that this is going on, ever
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Speaker 2: since Sally is charged at all, she has the support
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Speaker 2: of her family and other people who are standing in
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Speaker 2: solidarity with Sally as a victim of domestic abuse. You know,
10:00
Speaker 2: we've learned so much about domestic abuse since twenty ten
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Speaker 2: and have so much more language around what that can
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Speaker 2: really mean. And so as her legal team is preparing
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Speaker 2: for another appeal, this whole other picture of Sally's marriage
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Speaker 2: begins to emerge.
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Speaker 1: Through interviews with her attorney. She starts to sort of
10:25
Speaker 1: open up and we learn about like what was actually
10:28
Speaker 1: going on inside their marriage, and you know, it goes
10:33
Speaker 1: all the way back to the beginning. And actually Sally
10:37
Speaker 1: was only fifteen years old when they first met and
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Speaker 1: Richard was twenty two, you know, so she was still
10:44
Speaker 1: basically a child baby. Yeah, yeah, and there basically there's
10:49
Speaker 1: accounts that you know, he was controlling, like pretty much
10:54
Speaker 1: right off the bat. He would control like how she
10:59
Speaker 1: acted and wanted to control sort of like who she
11:02
Speaker 1: talked to. And she was still in school, but she
11:06
Speaker 1: would stop by his apartment after school to clean and
11:10
Speaker 1: cook for him.
11:12
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
11:13
Speaker 1: You know, this was like I think this was like
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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy or something, so definitely different times, but still
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Speaker 1: pretty alarming. And she got pregnant at seventeen and ended
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Speaker 1: up having a late term abortion. Her older brothers brought
11:30
Speaker 1: her to have this done, and they then confronted Richard
11:34
Speaker 1: about this. You know, it's like protective older brothers, and
11:38
Speaker 1: he supposedly said like kind of like shrugged it off
11:42
Speaker 1: and said it could have been anybody's like baby, Oh gosh.
11:46
Speaker 1: She also told her attorney that around this time, like
11:48
Speaker 1: around like age seventeen ish, she confronted Richard because she
11:52
Speaker 1: found out that he was still like sleeping with other women,
11:55
Speaker 1: and he dragged her down the stairs and threw her
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Speaker 1: out of the apartment. Said that she was basically afraid
12:02
Speaker 1: from them to throughout their whole relationship of like confronting
12:06
Speaker 1: him or pushing too hard in case he might react
12:08
Speaker 1: physically again like that, they ended up getting married. Her
12:11
Speaker 1: mom Sally's mom never liked him, didn't want them to
12:14
Speaker 1: get married, but people say, like she just really like
12:16
Speaker 1: seemed to love him and always hoped that things would
12:19
Speaker 1: get better. He was really into cars. He would it
12:24
Speaker 1: end up going on to start a car dealership and
12:27
Speaker 1: was very successful and like made pretty good money. Their home,
12:30
Speaker 1: their family home in Surrey in twenty ten, was estimated
12:34
Speaker 1: to be worth about one million pounds. But you know,
12:37
Speaker 1: things didn't quite you know, things didn't get better. Neighbors
12:40
Speaker 1: and friends would later say that he would often criticize
12:43
Speaker 1: her in public and like in social settings, often commenting
12:47
Speaker 1: on her weight. You know that she was she did
12:50
Speaker 1: all the cooking, all the cleaning, took care of all
12:52
Speaker 1: the household stuff for them while he worked, so she
12:55
Speaker 1: was mostly a homemaker while the kids were little. But
12:58
Speaker 1: then when their youngest turned thirteen, she went and got
13:01
Speaker 1: an admin job. But then her husband, Richard, then required
13:06
Speaker 1: her to use her salary that she got from her
13:09
Speaker 1: job to pay for all of the household expenses, and
13:12
Speaker 1: he kind of kept his money for himself and he
13:14
Speaker 1: would buy himself expensive cars and watches and go to
13:17
Speaker 1: Grand Prix events. Their youngest son, David, ever since his mom,
13:22
Speaker 1: you know, was arrested and charged, has become an advocate
13:25
Speaker 1: for his mother's release, and he recently wrote a book
13:28
Speaker 1: called The Unthinkable, A Story of control, Violence and My Mother,
13:33
Speaker 1: and he talks a lot about what he observed of
13:37
Speaker 1: his parents growing up. You know. He talked about his
13:40
Speaker 1: dad being this sort of like looming presence, and he
13:45
Speaker 1: really he watched as his dad would criticize his mother
13:48
Speaker 1: and come home and just criticize the food that she cooked.
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Speaker 1: He said that beyond that, his dad was very controlling,
13:55
Speaker 1: like very controlling of things like the television, even when
13:58
Speaker 1: he was gone all day at work. He didn't want
14:01
Speaker 1: his mom or the boys watching TV because he said
14:04
Speaker 1: it would like diminish the life of the television.
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Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, what that's like taking You know, you
14:12
Speaker 3: always hear about like dad things, you know, like they
14:14
Speaker 3: always wanted to shut off the lights or they always
14:16
Speaker 3: want you to do this, but like not watching TV
14:18
Speaker 3: because you're scared that it's going to diminish the life
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Speaker 3: of the TV is a new extreme of just dadism.
14:26
Speaker 1: Totally yeah, totally different than like shut the door, don't
14:29
Speaker 1: air condition the whole neighborhood, right, I've heard that before, clastic,
14:35
Speaker 1: but yeah, it was just like this like pattern of
14:37
Speaker 1: him being incredibly controlling. And he also controlled who Sally
14:42
Speaker 1: could be friends with. So one time she was like
14:45
Speaker 1: cooking in the kitchen. She was going to host a
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Speaker 1: new friend that she'd met, and Richard didn't like this,
14:51
Speaker 1: so he just like threw the food across the room
14:53
Speaker 1: and said, well, I guess you can't have her over anymore.
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Speaker 1: So there's definitely a pattern of him controlling her, isolation her,
15:01
Speaker 1: not wanting her to have friends. And then it sounds
15:04
Speaker 1: like he also was continually having affairs like that happened
15:07
Speaker 1: when they first met, and it sounds like it never
15:09
Speaker 1: really stopped. Certain times Sally seemed to sort of be
15:13
Speaker 1: believing him, and other times she would question him. Their son, David,
15:17
Speaker 1: remembers when he was around eighteen that he found out
15:20
Speaker 1: about some affairs his dad was having, and he even
15:23
Speaker 1: confronted his dad and he said his dad just would
15:26
Speaker 1: never hear any of it. He wasn't receptive to anyone
15:30
Speaker 1: else's feedback. And over and over, anytime Sally would question
15:36
Speaker 1: him about something in their marriage, he would say the
15:37
Speaker 1: same thing. He would say, don't question me, which was
15:41
Speaker 1: interesting because that's like the last thing he said to her,
15:44
Speaker 1: you know, before she killed him. In two thousand and four,
15:46
Speaker 1: Richard and Sally they went to Australia for a family's wedding.
15:50
Speaker 1: Richard brother lived there with his sister in law, and
15:53
Speaker 1: even his family remembers seeing him interact with Sally and
15:57
Speaker 1: thinking that something was wrong. They didn't like the way
16:00
Speaker 1: he was treating her. Reportedly, he just only wanted to
16:03
Speaker 1: dance with all the young women at the wedding and
16:06
Speaker 1: wouldn't dance with Sally. Seemed to be like just to
16:10
Speaker 1: embarrass her or something, and Richard's sister in law spoke
16:13
Speaker 1: with her at that time and asked her how things
16:16
Speaker 1: were going, and she said she told her if I
16:20
Speaker 1: left Richard, he would make my life hell. He was
16:24
Speaker 1: also charged with fraud in two thousand and six. He
16:26
Speaker 1: owned a Ferrari which cost him ninety two thousand pounds,
16:31
Speaker 1: and he had taken it to an F one track
16:33
Speaker 1: in Belgium and wrecked it, and instead of reporting it,
16:36
Speaker 1: he shipped it back to Surrey and tried to make
16:39
Speaker 1: an insurance claim saying that it was hit by a truck.
16:42
Speaker 1: So that's wild, but they figured out what was going on.
16:44
Speaker 1: He was charged with fraud by two thousand and nine. Sally,
16:49
Speaker 1: you know, her sons were older, and her son David specifically,
16:55
Speaker 1: was very like supportive of her trying to get out
16:58
Speaker 1: of this marriage. She had finally left Richard. She had
17:02
Speaker 1: a small amount of family inheritance which she used to
17:05
Speaker 1: buy a small house a few blocks away, and you know,
17:10
Speaker 1: she had finally done it. I mean she was in
17:11
Speaker 1: her fifties at this point, and she had started dating
17:14
Speaker 1: him when she was fifteen years old, So that's like,
17:17
Speaker 1: you know, her whole life basically. Yeah, And according to
17:21
Speaker 1: her friends and family, it just was really difficult. She
17:24
Speaker 1: couldn't really figure out how to do things without him.
17:27
Speaker 1: She was distraught, and soon she was hoping to get
17:31
Speaker 1: back together with him. Richard, on the other hand, I
17:34
Speaker 1: think used this as a way to manipulate her further
17:38
Speaker 1: and said that he would start to reconcile with her
17:41
Speaker 1: only under the circumstances that she agreed to get legally divorced.
17:46
Speaker 1: He wanted to give her two hundred thousand pounds, which
17:49
Speaker 1: would be far less than she would actually be entitled to,
17:52
Speaker 1: and she had to agree in writing that when they
17:55
Speaker 1: went out in public, she wouldn't talk with strangers and
17:58
Speaker 1: she would never interrupt him when he.
18:00
Speaker 3: Talked I hate this guy.
18:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, So she, you know, agreed to it, but she
18:06
Speaker 1: was also suspicious that maybe he was just using this
18:10
Speaker 1: as an excuse to get legally divorced from her and
18:13
Speaker 1: keep most of their assets under the guys that they
18:16
Speaker 1: were going to reconcile. So that was sort of the
18:19
Speaker 1: situation leading up to that day. In August of twenty ten,
18:22
Speaker 1: her divorce attorney said that she had started and then
18:25
Speaker 1: stopped divorce proceedings thirteen times, so there was a lot
18:28
Speaker 1: of just like indecision, and she had become obsessed with
18:33
Speaker 1: trying to find out if he was still cheating on her.
18:36
Speaker 1: You know, sounds like she was hoping that he had changed,
18:39
Speaker 1: but also wondering if he was just still doing the
18:42
Speaker 1: same thing.
18:49
Speaker 2: As Sally dives deeper into what was going on in
18:52
Speaker 2: her marriage with her legal team, through this appeals process,
18:55
Speaker 2: it becomes clear the extent of the abuse that she
18:59
Speaker 2: was experiencing. And so in February twenty nineteen, which you know,
19:06
Speaker 2: she was convicted a murder back in June of twenty eleven,
19:08
Speaker 2: she's been imprisoned this entire time. In February of twenty nineteen,
19:13
Speaker 2: she has a new legal team and it consists of
19:18
Speaker 2: her solicitor, whose name is Harriet Wistrick, and she's actually
19:21
Speaker 2: the director of the Center for Women's Justice in the UK.
19:25
Speaker 2: Their mission is to hold the state accountable and challenge
19:29
Speaker 2: discrimination in the justice system around male violence against women
19:32
Speaker 2: and girls. She also has a woman named Claire Waite
19:36
Speaker 2: on her side who is her trial attorney, and her
19:39
Speaker 2: practice really dives into murder, manslaughter, sexual offenses, and serious
19:45
Speaker 2: violence in the context of domestic homicide. So these two
19:50
Speaker 2: attorneys team up for Sally's defense and they get her
19:54
Speaker 2: appeal seen by a three judge panel and part of
19:58
Speaker 2: What comes out during that appeal is that there's this
20:02
Speaker 2: new term called coercive control that has come to light,
20:06
Speaker 2: and it really speaks to honing in on why Sally
20:10
Speaker 2: had that diminished responsibility that her defense said she had
20:14
Speaker 2: way back in twenty eleven. And there's an American professor
20:17
Speaker 2: named Evan Stark who never assessed Sally personally, but can
20:21
Speaker 2: really speak to this term of course of control. So
20:25
Speaker 2: he actually spoke during her appeal and he is quoted
20:28
Speaker 2: as saying that course of control was designed to subjucate
20:32
Speaker 2: and dominate, not merely to hurt. It achieves compliance by
20:35
Speaker 2: making victims afraid, depriving them of their rights, resources and
20:39
Speaker 2: liberties without which they cannot defend themselves, escape refused demands,
20:44
Speaker 2: or resist. It produces a hostage like condition of entrapment.
20:49
Speaker 2: And at the time of her trial, he says it
20:51
Speaker 2: was not widely understood. So these judges, you know, are
20:56
Speaker 2: going to determine if she's going to spend another ten
20:59
Speaker 2: plus years in prison. And outside the courthouse there's people
21:03
Speaker 2: holding signs Free Sally. Her sons are still there standing
21:06
Speaker 2: by her side. You know, as Hannah mentioned, people who
21:09
Speaker 2: were on Richard's side of the family had even witnessed
21:12
Speaker 2: the abuse. After this appeals process, Sally Wins and the
21:17
Speaker 2: crown that had initially convicted her wanted a retrial. They
21:20
Speaker 2: didn't get it is her charge was reduced from murder
21:25
Speaker 2: to manslaughter, and so she was released because she had
21:28
Speaker 2: already served that time. Her manslaughter sentence would have been
21:31
Speaker 2: over nine years, which she had already then served, and
21:34
Speaker 2: so she was released. And her son, who Hannah mentioned,
21:38
Speaker 2: said it was just an incredible experience to watch his
21:42
Speaker 2: mom walk out a free woman and for people to
21:46
Speaker 2: understand that she wasn't this, you know, cruel murderer. She
21:51
Speaker 2: was a woman who was experiencing course of control and
21:55
Speaker 2: didn't know way out. And I think also learning so
21:58
Speaker 2: much about her history and this being her first relationship
22:02
Speaker 2: from when she's fifteen, it's like that, I mean, you
22:06
Speaker 2: don't know anything else. I can see why she filed
22:10
Speaker 2: so many times and then trying to reconcile. It's like
22:12
Speaker 2: your whole self worth is tied up in this person
22:15
Speaker 2: because you don't know anything different.
22:17
Speaker 4: She's only been an adult with him, that's her whole
22:20
Speaker 4: adult life. But it makes me think of like you
22:24
Speaker 4: do hear those relationships like twenty something fifteen, and you
22:28
Speaker 4: have to wonder, like how much of that is because
22:31
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously there's laws against it, but how much
22:33
Speaker 4: of that is because they are just looking for someone
22:36
Speaker 4: to be able to control and manipulate, even if that
22:39
Speaker 4: doesn't seem like their intention, Like there's really no reason
22:42
Speaker 4: a twenty two year old and a fifteen year old
22:44
Speaker 4: should be getting together. That's again a baby, Like that's
22:47
Speaker 4: just a person starting their life, so.
22:50
Speaker 2: Totally real and it's unreal. And in the wake of
22:53
Speaker 2: her appeal, this term coercive control, they're realizing, Okay, this
22:59
Speaker 2: applies to the case of these other women who are
23:01
Speaker 2: imprisoned on these murder charges because we didn't have an
23:06
Speaker 2: understanding of domestic abuse and course of control like you know,
23:10
Speaker 2: at the time of their trial, like we do right now.
23:12
Speaker 2: And so there were successful appeals following Sally's successful appeal
23:16
Speaker 2: because of this sort of ability to convey to the
23:22
Speaker 2: judges what she was actually experiencing.
23:25
Speaker 4: Oh wow, that's amazing.
23:26
Speaker 3: That is such a wild story, not one that I
23:29
Speaker 3: can personally relate to. I only can relate to the
23:31
Speaker 3: part of the story of meeting your spouse very young.
23:34
Speaker 3: I was seventeen when I met my husband. We're actually
23:36
Speaker 3: about to celebrate our twenty year together in this anniversary
23:40
Speaker 3: next week. But I relate to the feeling of just
23:43
Speaker 3: like not knowing any other anything different. You know, whenever
23:47
Speaker 3: you don't know, you don't know. Even if you know
23:49
Speaker 3: that you don't want to be in the situation you're in,
23:52
Speaker 3: it's really scary to think about leaving that situation and
23:55
Speaker 3: going off into something that you don't even know. You know,
23:58
Speaker 3: at least the devil you know is better than the
24:00
Speaker 3: one you don't or whatever the phrase is. You know,
24:02
Speaker 3: you kind of know what you're into with what you've
24:04
Speaker 3: been used to, but if you leave and go off
24:07
Speaker 3: on your own, you don't know really what you're getting into.
24:09
Speaker 3: So you can see how that would be really scary
24:11
Speaker 3: for someone who got into that type of relationship when
24:13
Speaker 3: they were only fifteen years old.
24:15
Speaker 2: It's just really hard, especially like living under this threat
24:18
Speaker 2: like he's going to make her life hell if she
24:20
Speaker 2: divorces him, and it's like, okay, well what does that
24:23
Speaker 2: mean because my life was already so terrible with you,
24:26
Speaker 2: right right, so scary?
24:28
Speaker 4: How could it be worse?
24:29
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
24:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, So this week's story feels a little like a movie.
24:33
Speaker 4: Like if we told you this was a Netflix plot line,
24:36
Speaker 4: you'd probably believe us, but you'd still be like, well,
24:39
Speaker 4: maybe maybe not. I'm not sure. So we're talking about
24:43
Speaker 4: this lanky teenager from a small island town who escapes
24:46
Speaker 4: from a halfway house and goes on the run. But
24:50
Speaker 4: not just any run. This kid steals cars, he breaks
24:52
Speaker 4: into homes, he hacks computers, he flies actual airplanes that
24:56
Speaker 4: he taught himself how to fly, and he learned all
24:59
Speaker 4: of this on you Tube and he does it all.
25:02
Speaker 4: This part is unfortunate. Barefoot have you.
25:05
Speaker 3: Guys, Melissa hate that part.
25:09
Speaker 4: I don't care how good his feet are, anybody's feet,
25:12
Speaker 4: I don't want to see them. But have you guys
25:14
Speaker 4: heard of Colton Harris Moore, the Barefoot Bandit?
25:18
Speaker 3: I am not.
25:19
Speaker 4: Oh, this is such a treat. I'm so excited to
25:22
Speaker 4: be bringing.
25:23
Speaker 3: This to you.
25:23
Speaker 4: What a big day for us. So Colton Harrismore, he
25:27
Speaker 4: is six foot five, two hundred pounds by the time
25:29
Speaker 4: he reaches his full Internet legend status. So he is
25:34
Speaker 4: someone that lives in the woods. He's slipped through police traps,
25:37
Speaker 4: He's somehow captured the imagination of thousands of people who
25:40
Speaker 4: were rooting for him online. Think like Luigi that we
25:45
Speaker 4: just had going through the news like Mandion like that
25:48
Speaker 4: kind of a hype though, and people following his story
25:51
Speaker 4: like when Facebook was still kind of early days and stuff.
25:54
Speaker 4: But as wild and as me worthy as his cases,
25:57
Speaker 4: it's also sad and messy because he wasn't some kind
26:01
Speaker 4: of anti hero or anything. He was just a teenager
26:04
Speaker 4: who has been failed by really every system in his life.
26:07
Speaker 3: Yeah. So Colton was born in nineteen ninety one and
26:11
Speaker 3: he grew up in Camano Island, Washington. So this is
26:14
Speaker 3: a very tight knit island with only about fifteen hundred residents.
26:18
Speaker 3: So you're thinking, like it's in Washington, woodsy quiet, this
26:21
Speaker 3: is the kind of place that you really want to
26:23
Speaker 3: escape to or get away too now, the kind of
26:25
Speaker 3: place that you're usually running away from. But as we said,
26:29
Speaker 3: Colton didn't really have the peaceful small town life that
26:33
Speaker 3: you know, you would expect a child growing up in
26:35
Speaker 3: this area to have his dad left when he was
26:38
Speaker 3: just around two or three years old and was in
26:40
Speaker 3: and out of his life until he finally disappeared for good,
26:43
Speaker 3: and his mom struggled with addiction and mental health issues.
26:48
Speaker 3: She reportedly would let Colton just kind of come and
26:51
Speaker 3: go as he pleased. And that was even during the
26:54
Speaker 3: height of his crime spree. You know, she was still
26:57
Speaker 3: allowing him, you know, free access to her home.
27:00
Speaker 4: And she would straight up be like, my son was
27:03
Speaker 4: hungry and he came over, and what do you want
27:04
Speaker 4: me to do? Not feed them? When the police are like,
27:06
Speaker 4: you're aid in a betting, you know, a criminal, She's like, right,
27:09
Speaker 4: so I'm hungry, I'm going to feed him. So she
27:11
Speaker 4: did not. She was not to be messed with in
27:13
Speaker 4: this entire story.
27:15
Speaker 3: No, So by the time Colton was seven, he had
27:18
Speaker 3: already been arrested seven years old, which is heartbreaking and
27:23
Speaker 3: also like what happened, right, I'm sure that's probably what
27:27
Speaker 3: everyone's thinking, what would a seven year old possibly do? Well,
27:31
Speaker 3: he didn't hurt anyone, but he would sneak into vacation
27:35
Speaker 3: homes literally looking for food and shelter. Though, so like
27:38
Speaker 3: you have this little kid that's breaking and entering into
27:43
Speaker 3: vacation homes because he's hungry and he wants a place
27:46
Speaker 3: to rest. So his behavior, though, did escalate over time,
27:50
Speaker 3: not necessarily because he was a bad person, but literally
27:53
Speaker 3: it was a means of survival for him. And eventually
27:56
Speaker 3: he did end up in a juvenile detention center and
27:59
Speaker 3: then in a halfway house, and that's where things really
28:02
Speaker 3: took a sharp turn for him.
28:03
Speaker 4: So it was just days before his seventeenth birthday that
28:06
Speaker 4: Colton escaped the halfway house. Not in like a chaotic
28:10
Speaker 4: middle of the night, you know, running through in slow
28:13
Speaker 4: motion kind of thing, but more like a very carefully
28:17
Speaker 4: planned out route through the woods that he knew all
28:20
Speaker 4: of the woods like he literally grew up there and
28:22
Speaker 4: in there he was someone who lived in the woods
28:25
Speaker 4: a lot, and from there he launched one of the
28:27
Speaker 4: most bizarre and infamous two year crime spreees we have
28:31
Speaker 4: ever seen. He knows the woods, like I was saying,
28:34
Speaker 4: better than anyone. He would build a camp, he would
28:37
Speaker 4: stash his supplies, he'd even set out little hideouts near
28:41
Speaker 4: the houses that he was targeting, and police would like
28:44
Speaker 4: randomly stumble into his camps and think they're close to
28:47
Speaker 4: getting him, but within hours he realizes they've seen it
28:51
Speaker 4: and he's off to a new place. One thing I
28:53
Speaker 4: read was like, during this time he was in the woods,
28:56
Speaker 4: he was like a mile away from his mom, like
28:59
Speaker 4: he was in a very small area and they could
29:03
Speaker 4: not catch this kid at all. But it went further,
29:07
Speaker 4: not just breaking in, you know, stealing food and stuff.
29:10
Speaker 4: Locals start noticing strange things like their credit cards are
29:13
Speaker 4: being used online to buy things like bear spray, or
29:16
Speaker 4: computer hacking software or GPS tools, and of course porn.
29:21
Speaker 4: He wasn't just stealing random things. He was literally studying, researching,
29:26
Speaker 4: and upgrading his gear. In one particularly bold move, he
29:30
Speaker 4: broke into a police station, disabled their alarm system and
29:35
Speaker 4: was able to make out with a few things. And
29:37
Speaker 4: another time he broke into a fire station. Here's where
29:41
Speaker 4: I say he's kind of pretty smart and still an
29:43
Speaker 4: infrared camera. That way he could scan houses to make
29:47
Speaker 4: sure no one was in the house before he would
29:49
Speaker 4: break in. That way, you know, he's just going in
29:52
Speaker 4: getting what he needs, and he's leaving.
29:55
Speaker 3: Smart for thinking of having like thermal imaging before you
29:59
Speaker 3: break in someone's home, just to make sure they're not there.
30:02
Speaker 3: I appreciate that very much for his safety and the
30:06
Speaker 3: homeowner as well, but also not really smart to get
30:10
Speaker 3: one from a fire station just fine.
30:13
Speaker 2: So can only imagine how law enforcement felt like he's
30:16
Speaker 2: breaking into our facilities and we cannot catch him.
30:20
Speaker 3: It's got to be but to use our equipment against
30:23
Speaker 3: us basically like to use you know, like it's it's
30:26
Speaker 3: all just completely bizarre to even think that a teenager
30:29
Speaker 3: like was responsible for this whole.
30:31
Speaker 1: Can I ask a question real quick?
30:33
Speaker 3: Sure?
30:33
Speaker 1: So you had mentioned like, okay, so he's using credit cards.
30:36
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that's because he's breaking in people's homes and
30:39
Speaker 1: maybe like taking their wallet or something. And you had
30:42
Speaker 1: mentioned that he was also buying porn. Did he have
30:45
Speaker 1: like what was his connectivity as far as city of
30:48
Speaker 1: like internet access, study of a phone.
30:51
Speaker 4: He had a laptop. I don't remember if he had
30:54
Speaker 4: a phone, but he did have a laptop. Like as
30:56
Speaker 4: the story goes on, he literally will post pictures of
30:59
Speaker 4: himself on face Book laying in the woods, and everyone's
31:02
Speaker 4: trying to figure out where he is. Where he is
31:05
Speaker 4: I mean, and you'll hear more about the credit card
31:08
Speaker 4: thing in a minute. It's probably my favorite part of
31:10
Speaker 4: the story.
31:17
Speaker 3: So eventually, by the time he was, you know, in
31:20
Speaker 3: his teen years, he now has found a partner in
31:23
Speaker 3: crime for some of his crime adventures. And this was
31:27
Speaker 3: a friend of his name Harley. So the two of
31:29
Speaker 3: them started breaking into vacation homes together, and Harley later
31:33
Speaker 3: said that he was mostly just in it for the cash,
31:35
Speaker 3: but Colton was always looking for other things, as Melissa
31:37
Speaker 3: was saying, laptops, credit cards, anything, any tool or anything
31:41
Speaker 3: that he could get his hands on that might help
31:43
Speaker 3: him stay one step ahead of the authorities. They would
31:46
Speaker 3: even find keys to cars and they would go take
31:49
Speaker 3: these cars on joy ride, so grand theft auto. Now
31:52
Speaker 3: they're just all the crime stacking up. But in a
31:55
Speaker 3: weird twist of conscience or maybe chaos. They would sometimes
31:59
Speaker 3: return a car full of gas cleaned and park it back.
32:03
Speaker 4: And then you imagine coming home and thinking someone's messed
32:06
Speaker 4: with my car. But I have a full tank of
32:08
Speaker 4: gas and they cleaned it. I don't know that I
32:11
Speaker 4: would call the police. I'd be like, this was the
32:13
Speaker 4: you know, the car Angel.
32:15
Speaker 3: Car cleaning Ferry visited me.
32:17
Speaker 2: I'm one of these owners of a vacation home. This
32:20
Speaker 2: is like the lore of the island, and I want to.
32:22
Speaker 3: Break in, right, I want to be next no kidding.
32:27
Speaker 3: So it was around this time that residents started calling
32:29
Speaker 3: Colton teen Houdini, which I feel like is very apt
32:33
Speaker 3: considering that they really could not find him, and he
32:36
Speaker 3: would appear and disappear and just continue to confuse law
32:40
Speaker 3: enforcement every step of the way. So as words spread
32:44
Speaker 3: about this barefoot bandit teen genius that was just slipping
32:48
Speaker 3: through the cracks and you know, was not able to
32:51
Speaker 3: be captured. That was how kind of this legend was born.
32:55
Speaker 3: And there were really early YouTube videos about it. Facebook
32:58
Speaker 3: fan group started popping up. There were even people making
33:02
Speaker 3: and selling t shirts with his name or you know,
33:05
Speaker 3: barefoot bandit like some funny like it was just a
33:08
Speaker 3: big joke, but it really wasn't a joke. So that's
33:12
Speaker 3: where it's like very ironic.
33:13
Speaker 4: So the barefoot thing, though, he was doing this all
33:16
Speaker 4: the time in the woods everywhere. I don't know that
33:18
Speaker 4: it was necessarily he didn't like shoes, or he liked
33:21
Speaker 4: his feet, or he had a thing with me, I
33:23
Speaker 4: don't know, but it was very like obvious everywhere he
33:25
Speaker 4: went because they would see his footprints. One time, he
33:28
Speaker 4: even pours I think flower somewhere like on the ground
33:31
Speaker 4: and walks through it so they could see it. Like
33:33
Speaker 4: he was leaving his calling card everywhere, and unfortunately his
33:37
Speaker 4: calling card his feet.
33:38
Speaker 1: I can't yuck.
33:40
Speaker 2: I know it's about after all of the links that
33:42
Speaker 2: he went to.
33:43
Speaker 4: I know, I know, but he really he The thing
33:47
Speaker 4: with him is he really does think he's smarter than everyone,
33:49
Speaker 4: and in some ways he is smarter than a lot
33:51
Speaker 4: of people. He has like a will, a determination, like
33:55
Speaker 4: he's doing this for himself, and he hasn't had a
33:58
Speaker 4: lot even education, He really hasn't had a.
34:00
Speaker 3: Whole lot hurting anyone. And that's the other part about this.
34:04
Speaker 4: Yes and no, and you know there's no victims, but
34:08
Speaker 4: they're kind of if you think about it, if somebody
34:10
Speaker 4: brothers in my house and just like that sense of security,
34:13
Speaker 4: you lose that sense of security. So in that sense, like,
34:15
Speaker 4: oh well, I absolutely yeah.
34:17
Speaker 3: I mean he's not physically like going out and looking
34:18
Speaker 3: for people to like assault her anything. So I feel like,
34:21
Speaker 3: of course, of course this is still wrong and these
34:23
Speaker 3: are still crimes. Absolutely. I just mean he's not out
34:26
Speaker 3: he's not no basically hurting harming people, right, He's not
34:29
Speaker 3: out there like looking to like actually hurt people.
34:32
Speaker 4: And you know, unless you have in a physical way,
34:34
Speaker 4: then he's going to keep it from you.
34:36
Speaker 3: Unless his feet get all over yourself.
34:39
Speaker 4: Gross burn it down. So at one point police find
34:42
Speaker 4: one of his recent camps and they spotted something unusual.
34:44
Speaker 4: They found his dog, and so he very much loved
34:48
Speaker 4: this dog. The police decide we're going to take the
34:51
Speaker 4: dog in, and they hoped that it would lure Colton in,
34:55
Speaker 4: and it did sort of instead of turning himself in. Though,
34:59
Speaker 4: would you like to guess what I anyone, he stole
35:01
Speaker 4: the dog, thank you? He broke in, stole the car dog.
35:05
Speaker 4: I mean it was his dog. I don't know if
35:06
Speaker 4: it but we don't know the original place that he
35:10
Speaker 4: got his dog from, to be honest, So he stole
35:14
Speaker 4: someone's dog out of the out of there. This was
35:18
Speaker 4: kind of funny to me. They called his mom, who
35:20
Speaker 4: he had like a relationship with, but it was obviously
35:22
Speaker 4: very rocky. She was like, let me get his dog,
35:24
Speaker 4: and they were like, absolutely not. This dog is part
35:27
Speaker 4: of evidence. She's like, what, it's not evidence, but come on,
35:31
Speaker 4: she would have been like, hey, Colton, here's some eggs
35:33
Speaker 4: and here's your dog. She was not going to stop
35:36
Speaker 4: him or you know, not give him his dog. So,
35:38
Speaker 4: and then there are the planes. Colton was obsessed with aviation.
35:42
Speaker 4: He could actually identify aircrafts by the sound of their
35:45
Speaker 4: engines as they went over him. He would sit by
35:48
Speaker 4: the airfields and watch them take off and land. He
35:52
Speaker 4: would steal credit cards and use him to buy flight
35:55
Speaker 4: manuals online. And if you're like, wait a minute, why
35:58
Speaker 4: is he using credit cards? How is this getting to him?
36:00
Speaker 4: He doesn't have an address, right right, good question. One
36:05
Speaker 4: time he stole a credit card from a restaurant, got
36:09
Speaker 4: the tracking number, had it sent to the restaurant. When
36:12
Speaker 4: he saw that the tracking number said delivered, he broke
36:15
Speaker 4: in and got the book and got back out. So
36:20
Speaker 4: he needed the Internet as part of this. For sure.
36:23
Speaker 4: He taught himself everything. As I said, he has this manual,
36:26
Speaker 4: these books, he's reading them. He's watching thousands of hours
36:29
Speaker 4: on YouTube, which I can't remember how much was even
36:32
Speaker 4: on YouTube at the time. He's doing everything he can
36:35
Speaker 4: to learn about flying, literally anything to become a pilot.
36:39
Speaker 4: He wasn't really interested in becoming a pilot at some
36:41
Speaker 4: point in his life. He was literally studying for the
36:44
Speaker 4: moment he could try it for real.
36:46
Speaker 3: Which is a great way to great attitude to have
36:49
Speaker 3: towards flying.
36:50
Speaker 4: I mean, really, why do it later when we could
36:52
Speaker 4: do it now not great, right.
36:55
Speaker 3: And lucky for Colton, he didn't have to wait very long.
36:58
Speaker 3: The opportunity came a lot sooner than he or anyone
37:01
Speaker 3: ever expected. In the midst of all these news reports
37:04
Speaker 3: about this kid, he stole his first airplane and promptly
37:08
Speaker 3: crashed it, but somehow did survive and he got away.
37:13
Speaker 3: He slipped away. The authorities actually didn't even suspect Colton
37:18
Speaker 3: was behind this plane theft and crashing, because literally, why
37:22
Speaker 3: would you think that this kid barefoot bandit. You wouldn't
37:26
Speaker 3: put that together and think, well, maybe he not has
37:27
Speaker 3: stolen an airplane. They actually assumed that the plane was
37:30
Speaker 3: stolen and crashed by a drug runner who crashed the
37:33
Speaker 3: plane and took off. But one little plane crash, though,
37:37
Speaker 3: was not going to stop our friend Colton. He just
37:39
Speaker 3: really kept right going. From that point. He broke into
37:43
Speaker 3: six different airports just trying to find the right plane.
37:47
Speaker 3: I don't know how he was like any media miney
37:49
Speaker 3: mowing this or something.
37:51
Speaker 4: I don't know how he was choosing, and he was
37:54
Speaker 4: like looking for a very specific one. I guess he
37:57
Speaker 4: didn't learn to fly a lot of them, so it
37:59
Speaker 4: should have been millions of hours on YouTube, and maybe
38:01
Speaker 4: he could have just had his pick of the litter.
38:03
Speaker 3: I wonder if it's like, you know, when you're learning
38:05
Speaker 3: how to drive a car, or even when you're purchasing
38:07
Speaker 3: a new vehicle, Like I know that I look at
38:10
Speaker 3: driving smaller car differently than driving like a big thing.
38:13
Speaker 3: Sometimes I get freaked out if I think about, like
38:15
Speaker 3: could I drive a semi truck? Like I couldn't do that.
38:18
Speaker 3: Maybe it was the same with the plane. Maybe he
38:19
Speaker 3: was like, I can't take a passenger. I can't take
38:22
Speaker 3: a seven thirty seven, right, like I can't drive. He
38:25
Speaker 3: at least knew that much. He had to find like
38:27
Speaker 3: a small enough plane that he thought he could could
38:30
Speaker 3: handle right.
38:31
Speaker 4: Know your limits, you know, Yeah, I imagine these you
38:33
Speaker 4: have to know your lines, not commercial cesmas and stuff. Yeah,
38:37
Speaker 4: but wouldn't it be great?
38:38
Speaker 2: He did pretty wild, which there's so many of those
38:42
Speaker 2: little planes up there getting to the islands.
38:45
Speaker 4: Right exactly, so he really could discuss that's true.
38:48
Speaker 3: So over the course of this spree he did find
38:51
Speaker 3: a few different airplanes that suited his fancy. He actually
38:55
Speaker 3: stole several and crashed at least four of them, but
38:58
Speaker 3: somehow walked away on skates every single time. Either he's
39:02
Speaker 3: like got nine lives or he's just not flying very
39:05
Speaker 3: high and is a very lucky person. But by now
39:08
Speaker 3: the Internet was bought in. Everybody was in on this story.
39:11
Speaker 3: Everybody wanted to know more. He had thousands of Facebook friends,
39:14
Speaker 3: and as Melissa was saying, he's loving it. He loves
39:18
Speaker 3: the attention. He's posting pictures of himself just laying in
39:20
Speaker 3: the wood, just taunting the police and the authorities that
39:23
Speaker 3: are looking for him, enjoying the fact that people are
39:26
Speaker 3: literally writing songs about him. They're using his mugshot and
39:29
Speaker 3: putting it on merch. They're calling him a modern day
39:33
Speaker 3: Robin Hood. At one point, a veterinary clinic employee in Raymond,
39:38
Speaker 3: Washington found one hundred dollars bill and a handwritten note
39:42
Speaker 3: that read, I had some extra cash, please use it
39:45
Speaker 3: for the animals, and it was signed Colton Harris More
39:48
Speaker 3: aka the Barefoot Bandit. I don't know. He did seem
39:51
Speaker 3: like he was an animal person, so maybe it was him.
39:53
Speaker 3: But you know, sometimes I'm like, people, do weirds some
39:56
Speaker 3: extra cash? Strangers do weird? No, oh body, you still
40:00
Speaker 3: you need the cash? It is very Robinhood. I guess
40:03
Speaker 3: to have done.
40:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is so some people are of course rooting
40:08
Speaker 4: for him, but others are exhausted, especially the local police department.
40:12
Speaker 4: I can't imagine having to stand up there and say
40:15
Speaker 4: we still can't find him, and they're like, his feet
40:18
Speaker 4: are on the windows, who still don't know where he is?
40:20
Speaker 4: Like that has to get old really quick. But of
40:23
Speaker 4: course Colton's actions weren't completely harmless. He did leave people
40:27
Speaker 4: afraid in their own homes, as I was saying, before
40:29
Speaker 4: he broke into government vehicles, he stole guns. Law enforcement
40:33
Speaker 4: across multiple states spent countless hours and resources trying to
40:36
Speaker 4: find him, and he would just keep moving. He'd steal
40:40
Speaker 4: a car, drive it until it ran out of gas,
40:42
Speaker 4: and then ditch it and find another one. He actually
40:45
Speaker 4: started hopping islands by boat, avoiding capture again and again. Eventually, though,
40:52
Speaker 4: he has an idea. He wants to get to the Bahamas,
40:54
Speaker 4: so he is going to drive across the US, stealing cars,
40:59
Speaker 4: abandoning them as he runs out of gas, and then
41:03
Speaker 4: grabbing a new one. But finally, in July twenty ten,
41:06
Speaker 4: it all comes crashing down. Literally, Colton stole one plane.
41:11
Speaker 4: This one is in Indiana. And flew it all the
41:14
Speaker 4: way down to the Bahamas, which right there, How did
41:16
Speaker 4: you how? I wouldn't even know how if I was
41:20
Speaker 4: up or down, if I was flying a plane.
41:22
Speaker 3: I want to know. How come no air Traffic Control
41:25
Speaker 3: picked this up and was like, why is this random
41:27
Speaker 3: plane not flying at all correctly? Going all the way
41:31
Speaker 3: from Washington to Indiana? It's much better. It's just Indiana.
41:37
Speaker 2: No, It's also like you hear the ones you've become
41:40
Speaker 2: a parent, you never sleep through the night again because
41:42
Speaker 2: you just wear about your kids. I mean, this mom
41:44
Speaker 2: is operating on another planet.
41:47
Speaker 4: Absolutely, can you imagine? Oh my gosh, So this time
41:51
Speaker 4: his flight, believe it or not, he crash lands once again.
41:55
Speaker 4: These are smaller planes. It's got to be him running
41:58
Speaker 4: out of gas. I know at least a few times,
42:00
Speaker 4: and like pretty low to the ground. But still I
42:03
Speaker 4: many knows I would die if I just fell out
42:05
Speaker 4: of a plane. All my bones would break. I would
42:07
Speaker 4: be a medical emergency, like I can barely survive the day.
42:10
Speaker 4: And he's just getting out of crashes over and over again.
42:15
Speaker 4: But of course he's not done. He gets to the Bahamas,
42:18
Speaker 4: he's crashed. Now he's going to get a boat. So
42:20
Speaker 4: he takes a boat and he leads the Behaman authorities
42:23
Speaker 4: on a high speed water chase before they finally catch
42:26
Speaker 4: up to him, and they're like, if you try to
42:29
Speaker 4: drive off, we're going to shoot your boat, and so
42:30
Speaker 4: when he tries to do that, they shoot up his boat.
42:32
Speaker 4: He's alive, he's fine, but he was scared obviously at
42:36
Speaker 4: that point, and police were finally able to capture him.
42:39
Speaker 4: And just like that, the barefoot banded was grounded. Wow,
42:42
Speaker 4: ground it, You're grounded. He needed to be grounded a
42:45
Speaker 4: few more times he did, starting at seven.
42:47
Speaker 3: To the Bohemian authorities extradited him back to the US,
42:51
Speaker 3: and once he was back in the US, he faced
42:54
Speaker 3: over thirty charges. They ranged from everything including burglary to
42:59
Speaker 3: aircraft theft, which apparently is its own separate crime. I
43:04
Speaker 3: didn't know that, but he was facing multiple years of incarceration,
43:07
Speaker 3: and that is, of course, unless he could get himself
43:10
Speaker 3: a great defense attorney, and you bet he did. So
43:14
Speaker 3: you might know this guy. His name is John Henry Brown,
43:17
Speaker 3: and it is the same John Henry Brown who once
43:20
Speaker 3: defended Ted Bundy. So in twenty twelve, Colton pleaded guilty
43:25
Speaker 3: to multiple federal charges, and he was sentenced to six
43:28
Speaker 3: and a half years in prison. He went on to
43:30
Speaker 3: service time really without any incident, surprisingly because you would
43:34
Speaker 3: think that the Barefoot Bandit would like Barefoot band It
43:36
Speaker 3: his way right out of prison as his last act
43:40
Speaker 3: of just like completely expanding about it. But absolutely, he
43:45
Speaker 3: definitely thought about it. He definitely thought about it. But
43:49
Speaker 3: after his release, his legitimate release in twenty sixteen, Colton
43:53
Speaker 3: reportedly went to a halfway house and worked in construction
43:57
Speaker 3: and expressed interest in becoming an aviation mechanic, which definitely
44:01
Speaker 3: makes sense might be a great career path for him.
44:03
Speaker 3: He definitely was persistent and he had at least a
44:07
Speaker 3: little bit of knowledge already going into it, so maybe
44:09
Speaker 3: that would be a good thing for him. But now
44:11
Speaker 3: that the media circus has moved on his story, of course,
44:13
Speaker 3: lingers as one of the weirdest true crime rabbit holes
44:16
Speaker 3: that we've ever been down. We actually years ago talked
44:20
Speaker 3: about this story for our Patreon listeners. It's been such
44:23
Speaker 3: a long time ago. They did a documentary about this.
44:26
Speaker 4: It's on Amazon Prime. It's not great, but there's like
44:31
Speaker 4: forty eight hours. I thought, it's like a weirdly animated
44:33
Speaker 4: thing in part so many feet. One time he's just
44:38
Speaker 4: sitting in the plane. I rewatched it and just his
44:40
Speaker 4: foot is up there in the most odd way you
44:42
Speaker 4: could ever put your foot. But I'm like, we get it,
44:44
Speaker 4: he's barefoot. They just couldn't stop have a very hard
44:47
Speaker 4: time with the barefoot thing. You gotta be honest, too much, I.
44:51
Speaker 2: Mean, boy bare feet, Like yeah, okay, yeah, you you
44:55
Speaker 2: really brought too much.
44:57
Speaker 4: That is way too much. But of course we know
45:00
Speaker 4: Colton wasn't actually violent unless you count the aggressiveness he
45:04
Speaker 4: portrayed his feet. The amount of times I've seen this
45:07
Speaker 4: kid's feet is upsetting and unsettling. But of course it
45:11
Speaker 4: wasn't exactly harmless. He was failed by all the adults
45:14
Speaker 4: in his life, really, by the system and by the
45:16
Speaker 4: structures that were supposed to protect him, and he learned
45:20
Speaker 4: to survive on his own, and somewhere along the way,
45:23
Speaker 4: survival turns into a spectacle, and thanks to internet hype
45:26
Speaker 4: and media fascination, that spectacle turns into legend. Really, but
45:31
Speaker 4: behind all the headlines and memes is a boy who
45:33
Speaker 4: really never had a fair shot. Of course, you know,
45:37
Speaker 4: there's a ripple effect of his actions, and it stretches far.
45:40
Speaker 4: It's in people's homes, it's in their communities, and in
45:43
Speaker 4: the lives of people who are still dealing with the consequences.
45:46
Speaker 4: I will say from that documentary, this is kind of
45:48
Speaker 4: peeling back what I just said. But there's a lady
45:51
Speaker 4: who I guess Colton had ran through her yard and
45:54
Speaker 4: she took the footprints made like casings and tried. I
46:00
Speaker 4: saw them on eBay and I want to know if
46:02
Speaker 4: she sold them, but she was like standing up in
46:04
Speaker 4: the documentary with two feet and I was like, lady,
46:06
Speaker 4: this is too far. We've gone way too far. So yeah,
46:09
Speaker 4: So that's really the story of Colton and his barefoot
46:13
Speaker 4: banded bandit badness.
46:16
Speaker 2: Wow, what a great story. And I'm from Washington State
46:19
Speaker 2: and i'd never heard of it.
46:20
Speaker 3: Really.
46:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't know this one in real time. I
46:24
Speaker 4: will say, I'm normally like pretty good on those things.
46:26
Speaker 4: I didn't know this and one in real time, but
46:28
Speaker 4: I've been fascinated by it ever since.
46:30
Speaker 1: Wow, it's so interesting, and you know you're right, like
46:33
Speaker 1: he's breaking in people's home, he is causing some level
46:36
Speaker 1: of damage and fear, but you can really also feel
46:39
Speaker 1: for him, like he was this kid that really never
46:42
Speaker 1: fit into society and maybe didn't really have a chance.
46:46
Speaker 1: So then he was like, I'm just going to make
46:48
Speaker 1: my own way and do whatever I want, and was clearly,
46:52
Speaker 1: you know, it is clearly intelligent in some way, and.
46:55
Speaker 3: He is resourceful. You cannot say that he's not resourceful.
46:58
Speaker 3: He paid attention and kind of he was always one
47:03
Speaker 3: step ahead. Obviously he knew what he was doing. I mean,
47:06
Speaker 3: and I don't I genuinely don't believe that he was
47:07
Speaker 3: trying to like harm or scare anyone. For sure. I
47:10
Speaker 3: think it was just him just trying to take care
47:12
Speaker 3: of himself and to get by. For sure.
47:14
Speaker 2: I don't know what the job is, but there's a
47:16
Speaker 2: very specific job out there for Colton.
47:20
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
47:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.
47:22
Speaker 4: Can you even imagine. And when you were saying Mandy
47:24
Speaker 4: earlier about the planes being stolen and how that's like
47:27
Speaker 4: a federal offense or whatever, it's so funny because you
47:30
Speaker 4: know there is somebody in the FBI whose job is
47:32
Speaker 4: like plane recovery or something. We always run into that.
47:35
Speaker 4: You'll be like some FBI agent in charge of art theft.
47:38
Speaker 4: I'm like, really, but I mean, I guess it does
47:40
Speaker 4: make sense. So there's a job for Colton, and there's
47:43
Speaker 4: a job for everyone.
47:44
Speaker 3: I guess.
47:48
Speaker 1: I had never heard of the Barefoot bandit that I
47:50
Speaker 1: hadn't either, and I was good and I'm from the Northwest.
47:53
Speaker 1: Yeah I know, and you had somehow that slipped by.
47:56
Speaker 3: Yeah.
47:56
Speaker 1: They did such a good job of telling the story.
47:58
Speaker 1: They're so delightful. I loved how much he loved his dog.
48:02
Speaker 1: I know, like anytime someone loves dogs, I have to
48:06
Speaker 1: have a little bit of a soft spot for them totally.
48:08
Speaker 2: I actually remember when I was adopting my last dog, Bunker,
48:13
Speaker 2: who you you know, rip iip. I was at the
48:16
Speaker 2: Lacity shelter and there was this beautiful dog there. This
48:21
Speaker 2: was before we found Bunker, and I asked if I
48:24
Speaker 2: could like meet this dog. And so my husband and
48:26
Speaker 2: I go in to meet with this dog and the
48:28
Speaker 2: person who is in there from the shelter is like, oh,
48:32
Speaker 2: don't get attached. His owner is going to be back
48:34
Speaker 2: for him. Like the dog gets out all the time.
48:37
Speaker 2: The owner just goes and gets the dog back, and
48:39
Speaker 2: he is an escape artist, just like jumping over every fence.
48:43
Speaker 2: And I'm like, it reminded me of the Barefoot bandit
48:45
Speaker 2: like they cannot be.
48:46
Speaker 1: Separated, always slipping between your fingers. Yes, yes, well I
48:50
Speaker 1: have a wreck actually for great Day.
48:52
Speaker 4: Yeah.
48:52
Speaker 2: So this is a documentary and it actually premiered back
48:56
Speaker 2: in twenty eleven on EHBO and it's called There's Something
49:00
Speaker 2: Wrong with Aunt Diane. And the documentary is about Diane
49:05
Speaker 2: Schuler and a terrible car accident that she gets into
49:09
Speaker 2: where there's multiple fatalities and sort of what leads to
49:13
Speaker 2: the crash and unpacking what was going on for Diane
49:17
Speaker 2: that the family was unaware of that probably led to
49:20
Speaker 2: this crash. It was just a really powerful examination of
49:24
Speaker 2: like how well you can know someone and also be
49:28
Speaker 2: unaware of their struggles.
49:30
Speaker 1: There's like there were some dark secrets that were revealed.
49:33
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and it's incredibly heavy and sad, but it's
49:36
Speaker 2: also there's you can see despite, you know, because she
49:40
Speaker 2: was driving, So it's like, despite what happened with the
49:43
Speaker 2: crash and the death that came from this crash, there
49:47
Speaker 2: was so much love for her from so many of
49:50
Speaker 2: her family members still that it has always just stayed
49:52
Speaker 2: with me because I thought it was a really dynamic
49:55
Speaker 2: look at a tragedy.
49:58
Speaker 1: Is there a trial or a criminal aspect to this.
50:02
Speaker 2: You know, I don't remember if there was any sort
50:04
Speaker 2: of like post mortem charges. I wouldn't think so, but
50:08
Speaker 2: I don't recall exactly. But yeah, there's one interview in
50:11
Speaker 2: particular that stands out so much to me. And I
50:14
Speaker 2: don't even want to give it anything away, but yeah,
50:16
Speaker 2: you should watch it. It's powerful and it's one that I
50:19
Speaker 2: think probably not a lot of people have seen.
50:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, what is it called again?
50:22
Speaker 2: There's something wrong with Aunt Diane.
50:25
Speaker 1: I'll put it on my list. I have to tell you,
50:28
Speaker 1: I just watched a documentary. I don't really have a recommendation,
50:32
Speaker 1: but I'm just gonna mention this one because this is
50:34
Speaker 1: one that you recommended to me, not on air, just
50:37
Speaker 1: on personal text message. Okay, love has won. Yeah, you
50:42
Speaker 1: recently recommended this to me, and I was shocked, and
50:44
Speaker 1: I think you were shocked too that neither of us
50:46
Speaker 1: had seen this yet, because it came out in twenty
50:48
Speaker 1: twenty three, I think. And it's about the Amy Carlson,
50:53
Speaker 1: her group. She was this sort of she called herself
50:57
Speaker 1: mother God. She had a group of followers and she
51:01
Speaker 1: was found dead in a home in Colorado. And I
51:04
Speaker 1: can't remember what year she died, but her followers were
51:07
Speaker 1: still there. Her followers were still there, And we talked
51:11
Speaker 1: about this years ago, like as it was breaking news.
51:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, as news of her death was starting to make headlines.
51:19
Speaker 2: We were working on another show and the story came
51:23
Speaker 2: up and we actually reached out about it. And I
51:25
Speaker 2: think the person we made some contact with was her son,
51:28
Speaker 2: who she was estranged from. But there was so much
51:31
Speaker 2: going on and so many people working on the story
51:34
Speaker 2: already that it wasn't the right place for us to
51:37
Speaker 2: be spending our time. But the documentary is so unique
51:40
Speaker 2: because it has so much access to believers followers, and
51:46
Speaker 2: you don't usually get that.
51:47
Speaker 1: I think they must have started filming right after she died,
51:50
Speaker 1: because they have some very early footage of her followers
51:54
Speaker 1: doing interviews who still believe in her. And I mean
51:59
Speaker 1: that must have Just the trust that this documentary filmmaker
52:02
Speaker 1: must have had to build with them is really impressive.
52:06
Speaker 2: It was also impressive. I mean, you and I talked
52:08
Speaker 2: about this so much. It's like, especially because we've worked
52:11
Speaker 2: on cult stories, is that these interviews, you never felt
52:16
Speaker 2: like the director, the producer, the person behind the camera
52:20
Speaker 2: was poking any fun at them. I mean, yes, those
52:23
Speaker 2: are you know, probably considered pretty outrageous beliefs that these
52:27
Speaker 2: people have, but it never felt like we were laughing
52:31
Speaker 2: at them. Yeah, it was just like an eye opening
52:34
Speaker 2: view into like, wow, they were really in this.
52:38
Speaker 1: No, I totally agree, and that was really impressive. And
52:41
Speaker 1: I like that a lot because it would have been
52:42
Speaker 1: so easy to make fun of these people, and I
52:45
Speaker 1: really felt like they never did that. It was really
52:47
Speaker 1: pretty empathetic viewpoint.
52:49
Speaker 3: Like.
52:49
Speaker 1: Also, most of the people that were in this cult
52:52
Speaker 1: seem like very kind people that just like really went
52:55
Speaker 1: down a rabbit hole and believe some things that are
52:59
Speaker 1: like pretty out there. But one of the things also
53:01
Speaker 1: that makes the documentary so great is that part of
53:03
Speaker 1: what this, you know, I'm going to call them a cult.
53:06
Speaker 1: I think that's fair to say Colt was doing is
53:10
Speaker 1: they were live streaming. They were selling products, crystals, tinctures,
53:17
Speaker 1: and so part of that brand building is they were
53:19
Speaker 1: live streaming a lot. So there's just so much archival
53:22
Speaker 1: footage of them live streaming over the years. So it
53:26
Speaker 1: is such a well done documentary. I loved it and
53:29
Speaker 1: I would recommend it to anyone. Same Love has One,
53:32
Speaker 1: Love has One? Well, that was our episode this week.
53:35
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening and we'll see you guys soon. I
53:39
Speaker 2: If you have a story for us, we would love
53:41
Speaker 2: to hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactly
53:44
Speaker 2: rightmedia dot com, or you can follow us on Instagram
53:47
Speaker 2: at the Knife Podcast or Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast.
53:50
Speaker 1: This has been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced
53:53
Speaker 1: by me Hannah Smith and me Patia Eating. Our producers
53:57
Speaker 1: are Tom Brivogel and Alexis Samarosi. This episodd was mixed
54:00
Speaker 1: by Tom Bryfogel.
54:01
Speaker 2: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
54:04
Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Birds in the Airport.
54:06
Speaker 2: Artwork by Vanessa Lilac.
54:08
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Karen Kilgareff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.